


A Night's Comfort

by Barkour



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Unresolved Romantic Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-09
Updated: 2016-03-09
Packaged: 2018-05-25 15:03:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 667
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6199636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Barkour/pseuds/Barkour
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Bull woke poorly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Night's Comfort

The Bull sat on the bed's lip with a hand in his lap and a hand on his face. The floor was cold stone beneath his feet. He curled his toes against it then, as the connecting tendons allowed it, unfurled them from the smallest toes in to the largest. 

The night was dark. The hour, early and unnamed. The trembling had gone from his wrists. He flexed his toes again.

The sheets rustled. A bony, sleep-warmed foot pressed to his arse. The Bull forced the tension from his hands.

"Come back here." 

Dorian mumbled most of it and pushed at the Bull with his foot. He crooked the big toe. The knuckle popped. Dorian sighed.

The Bull cradled his face in palm. Thumb fitted to the scarred socket, remnant of the eye given. The first finger pressed to the corner of his right eye. The shape and heft of the organ resisted. He'd the thought of what it would be to pop it. 

"Just need a moment." 

His throat rasped. 

Dorian's toes moved in strange currents across his back. Then the foot withdrew. The sheets spoke again. Dorian sat up. The Bull sighed. 

"Go back to sleep."

Warmth, at his bared and bending back, as Dorian ran spell-roughed hands across the breadth of the Bull's shoulders. He bent further beneath Dorian's palms.

Dorian rested his cheek on the Bull's back. The short hairs of Dorian's unshaved face scratched at him. Dorian's breath stirred his skin.

"I can't sleep," Dorian said, careful as he was when he'd only just woke. "With you brooding so loudly."

The Bull grunted. Dorian's hands moved more firmly along the Bull's back. His fingers traced the divots carved long ago in the Bull's thick flesh. The scars did not ache him. Nor did Dorian's brisk mapping sting. The Bull's fingers eased upon his face.

A yawn disturbed Dorian. He grumbled at it and rubbed with one hand at his mouth. The back of the hand, thought the Bull with his eye closed beneath his own hand. Mustache skewed. 

"Go back to sleep, Dorian," said the Bull again, but he said it gently. 

Dorian swatted his back. 

"You could tell me."

The Bull breathed in then out. In and out. He worked his toes. The sweat smell of Dorian sat realer on his tongue than the memory of roasted meat, Seheron smoke.

"You don't want to hear it."

"Don't tell me what I want or don't want."

"And what do you want?"

"Come back to bed," said Dorian. He pulled at the Bull's horn. 

The Bull lowered his hand. He turned to Dorian, to look at him over his shoulder. Sleep lines marred Dorian's thick features. He'd a wary look, a defiant look in those lines beside his eyes. Love me.

Dorian said, "What?"

The Bull brushed two fingers across Dorian's cheek. "You got boogeys in your eyes."

"I was sleeping," said Dorian, "until someone let all the cold air into the bed."

The Bull turned away, only so he might clamber more easily into bed again. Dorian ducked beneath his arm as he reached for the blankets, to cast them across the both of them.

"Sorry about that," said the Bull. "Needed to clear my head."

Dorian tucked to the Bull's side. He was very stiff about it. All the soft, sleepy intimacy that had driven him to rest his stubbled cheek on the Bull's bunched shoulder blade had slipped from him. 

"And did you?"

The smoke lingered in his throat. Shadows still stuck to the walls. Dorian's shoulder was a hard knot at the Bull's breast.

The Bull shifted. He worked his arm about Dorian. As Dorian made startled breath, the Bull pulled him sweetly near, so that Dorian was warm and half spilt atop him.

"Yeah," said the Bull. He stroked Dorian's arm with the fingers left to that hand. He said, "Thanks."

Dorian said, "Well. You're welcome," rather shortly. Then he laid his head down upon the Bull's breast.


End file.
